by B. C. Tweedt
“Grimes!”
Drake snagged him by the shirt and pulled him down the tunnel where Ankeny and Beep were screaming for them, watching the beast find its footing on loose tile.
The crazed man was just ahead of them, racing up a new set of stairs.
In his panic, Grimes glimpsed the sign above. To Thanksgiving Square.
Though a small part of him wanted to stop and investigate the drone’s structure, the bigger, wiser part of him that wanted to live propelled him after Drake, swerving to avoid the chairs and tables.
CLONKCLONKCLONKCLONK!
Chapter 43
Glancing behind as the soldiers abandoned the smoking Bradley, Greyson eyed his DOC. “Liam! Stay with it,” Greyson whispered as if it could understand. Then he sent the drone after its wayward kin.
“Too much heat here!” Windsor shouted. “Need a door soon.”
A door?
Greyson saw what he meant. They needed in the building to their right, but there weren’t any windows or doors. He’d have to make one.
Greyson could make a door.
He pulled a BallBoom from its pouch, loaded it, and warned Windsor.
Then he fired.
The brick wall exploded with dust and debris and caused ringing in his ears. He guided Windsor through and suddenly felt guilty for making a mess of such a pleasant lobby. There was even brick in the fountain.
Hearing the treads of soldiers behind them, they didn’t waste any time racing up the escalator to the second floor. Windsor knew exactly where to go and Greyson understood why he’d taken him here.
A skybridge.
“Pedestrian Network. Connects half of downtown. Tunnels, skybridges. We’d take the underground trucking tunnels, but the Merks flushed those a week ago – took it for themselves.”
Greyson eyed his DOC. “North. Then West. It’s headed toward Thanksgiving Square.”
“Perfect!”
Windsor sprinted to the first skybridge, and Greyson followed as the HUD’s path-line appeared above its grey and orange industrial strength carpet. A plain-clothed man was laying in the middle of it, next to a potted plant with a pair of binoculars pointed to the east through the skybridge’s glass wall. He glanced in their direction, but turned back to the street without a word. Greyson slowed to a jog as they passed over a street and noticed two men kneeling at sidewalks on opposing corners.
“Bogies,” came the man’s scratchy voice. “Armor and drones.”
Greyson stopped and turned to the man, but he wasn’t talking to him. It didn’t look like he was talking to anybody.
But something had signaled the kneeling men on the street; they hightailed away, ducking into the same shop down the block.
The man on the skybridge had signaled the others. He’s a lookout.
A moment later, Greyson felt the skybridge floor rattle as a Bradley churned underneath. The glass rumbled as a squadron of Quads flew above, racing toward a large mob of protestors three blocks away – an enticing target for the military.
Greyson saw the ambush about to happen. He wanted to scream – pound his hands on the glass to warn them. Stop, stop! But he couldn’t.
When the Bradley reached the corner, bombs went off on either side, pummeling the armored vehicle with stone and dark dust. Two of the drones were sent spiraling into windows, but the others veered to safety. The Bradley slowed to a stop, but a flaming bottle flew from a window and crashed on its treads. It burst into flames, but still turned to fire into the window even as it burned.
Kit whimpered and Greyson couldn’t stand to watch anymore.
The scratchy voice grated behind him. “E Unum Pluribus.”
Greyson turned to glare at the lookout. The man was smiling.
“Greyson!” Windsor shouted. “Let’s go!”
Greyson jogged and then ran, his feet thumping hollow on the skybridge, like the thumping of the Bradley’s cannon.
“E Unum Pluribus!” echoed behind him.
-------------------------------
Grimes rounded a corner, hugging his backpack and glancing backward as the armored beast barreled through a table, blasting the legs apart and scattering its chairs.
Darts whizzed past Grimes’ head, sticking into a sign for Woody’s Grill. Pneumatic air rifling system! Fascinating!
But when it reached the curve, the rhino’s metal hooves slipped on the tile; it disappeared into the bookstore, sending books flying as its body became a wrecking ball of destruction.
A waterfall of bookshelves and books cascaded out, followed closely by the rhino, still struggling for footing.
“Up!” Drake shouted.
Grimes turned to see the stairs just in time, but still stumbled on them. Drake pulled him up, yanking on his collar, and together they struggled to the top where the crazed man was pushing a second table with a screech, creating a barricade. Ankeny and Beep stacked chairs on top.
“Help!” they demanded.
Grimes was gasping for breath now, and he shimmied past, putting his hands on his knees, surveying another stretch of stores as Drake joined the man in pulling another table over.
They would do the physical work. He had to think – use his brain to get them out of this. What are this drone’s weaknesses? Bad traction and Greyson’s EMP ball ammunition. Is it piloted or automatic? No way of knowing. What does it want? Yes. That is the right question. It has been provoked. It isn’t trying to kill us. That isn’t its purpose. It’s a riot-control drone. All of its weapons point to the fact – it’s meant to prevent violence – and suppress those who cause it.
Dink, dink, dink.
Grimes looked up from his knees where a tear-gas canister had rolled. He glanced over the barricade to catch the rhino with an opening in its torso gaping toward them. Darts pounded their barricade and another canister fired out, banging on the roof, over their heads.
I am right. Of course!
BANGBANGBANG!
The crazed man fired into the drone’s armor without effect.
“Run!” Drake yelled as the gas plumed at their feet.
Grimes felt the fumes burning in his nostrils, starting a fire in his throat.
Ankeny had already pulled her bandana over her mouth and nose; she kicked the canisters toward the barricade and shoved Grimes on. “Hurry!”
Together they sprinted down the tunnel, leaving the smoking barricade behind.
BANGBANGBANG! Click. Click. Click.
The crazed man screamed and ran after them just before the rhino exploded through the tables and chairs like they were matchsticks. The debris followed the man, bouncing at his heels.
“It’s after him. Not us!” Grimes yelled, blinking away tears and rubbing his eyes. It’s after the gun…
Drake continued pulling him. “You sure?” he asked through his bandana.
“Yes!” he said. “Of course!”
“Will it kill him?”
“No!” Unless it’s hacked. But that’s irrelevant.
Drake glanced over his shoulder and started up another wide flight of stairs. But he turned, pushing Grimes up a ramp and into a nook where a sign read Handicapped Elevator. “Then we leave him to it!”
They all piled into the elevator and Grimes found the UP button, pressing it repeatedly. It buzzed at him until Drake and Ankeny pushed the doors shut. The buzzing stopped and the elevator began to rise before the man could join them.
“NO! WAIT!” came the echoed pleas from the crazed man.
The kids exchanged regretful looks with each other, heaving with adrenaline as the rhino’s roar filled the tunnel beneath.
B-RRRRUUUUUHHHHH!
-------------------------------
“There it is!” Greyson shouted as they ran through another empty building.
The malfunctioning drone was flittering by the windows, two floors higher. It had slowed down. Is it dying?
He glanced at his DOC. Liam was abo
ve it, tracking its progress. Greyson could have Liam shoot it, but it’d risk hitting the hard drive. They’d have to find another way to grab it.
“We’ll cut it off!” Windsor huffed, sprinting ahead.
Windsor’s route had taken them winding through several buildings, closer and closer to Thanksgiving Tower.
[We’re on approach to the Tower. Diablo and you are converging on the drone. So is PatriARC. Get to it first!]
“I know, I know!”
Their shoes spanked the skybridge and they turned to find the drone.
SMACK!
The drone slammed the glass wall and a spider web of cracks filled their vision. The machine’s buzz and sparks were audible as it tried to break through. The boys eyed each other, unsure of what to do.
Before they could choose, the drone retreated, buzzing the way it came, toward Thanksgiving Tower. When the drone left, it revealed to the boys the police van that had stopped in the street – with one man leaning out the window hefting a missile launcher on his shoulder.
A box formed around it in his HUD. “Danger” flashed in red.
“Run!”
WooooooooOOOOSSH!
Greyson and Windsor dove as the missile swished past the retreating drone and struck the top of the skybridge. The explosion showered flames and glass that licked at their backs as they hit the ground, covering their heads.
Greyson’s ears rang again, and he waited for the heat to recede before moving.
“Mother goose!” Windsor exclaimed, eyeing the hole where the skybridge used to connect. Loose debris was still falling. Pieces of jagged, scalded carpet hung through the ten-foot gap, open to the street below.
Greyson glanced at the drone, the police van in pursuit, and the man reloading his missile launcher. Then his eyes rested on the gap and the sign hanging on the far end.
To Thanksgiving Square.
“Can we make that jump?”
“I can,” Windsor said. “You?”
Greyson had an idea. “No problem.”
Windsor shot to his feet, backed up a few steps, and gulped down his fear. With one last sigh, he bolted toward the gap and pounded his last step.
He seemed to float over the gap, his shirt flapping behind his back like a cape. When his feet hit the other side, he tucked and rolled, leaping again to his feet. “Woot! Your turn!”
“Just a sec.”
Greyson typed on his DOC, took a few steps back, and then ran forward. He was slower than Windsor, thicker, and much less of a jumper. The look on Windsor’s face told him he wasn’t going to make it even before he leapt. Then, when he actually did jump, Windsor’s face descended to horror.
“No-oooo!”
Chapter 44
Greyson only made it halfway across the gap.
Just like planned.
He saw Liam hover to the gap and planted his feet on its back as if it were a lily pad in a pond of air. He raised his arms and bent his knees instinctively, tipping back and forth with the drone until they regained balance. Then springing from the drone, he made the final leap look easy, landing in a run. Kit landed not too far behind him, nipping at his heels, liking the game. Greyson even punched Windsor’s shoulder as he ran past.
Windsor placed his hand on his heart, shaking his head. “Don’t do that to me, bro.” He raced after Greyson, following the signs all the way to the square.
Thanksgiving Square was actually a triangle. A beautiful, triangular oasis amidst the concrete and glass towers. A tower with three bells stood at the far corner pointing toward two converging streets. Though concrete walls surrounded most of the park, lush bushes, trees, and fountains marked the interior with sidewalks winding to the base of the triangle at the foot of the tinted glass Thanksgiving Tower. But when Greyson pressed himself close to a second-story window, searching for the drone, it was the chapel that caught his eye. Like the top half of a giant white crescent roll rising from the cement, the marble chapel spiraled sixty feet high in the courtyard, near the Pedestrian Tunnel.
“That’s it!” Windsor shouted. “It’s in the courtyard. Just lyin’ there!”
Sure enough, the drone was near an overturned table and chairs, shaking, but otherwise immobile.
“Diablo,” Greyson spoke. “It’s in the Square. Can you get to it?”
[ETA 60 secs.]
“They’re one minute out,” he told Windsor.
“We don’t have one,” Windsor replied, pointing at the police van racing toward the bell tower.
Greyson cursed, knowing they wouldn’t get there in time. The van had a missile launcher to destroy the evidence. It would be over in ten seconds.
The van rammed a low wall, blasting through and rattling onto the sidewalk.
He had to stop it.
“Get back!”
He took a step away, loaded a ball, and shot it into the window. But it didn’t break. The ball left a ball-sized hole and a few cracks.
The van barreled closer to the courtyard.
This is dumb. Dumb!
He loaded a BallBoom and placed the slingshot against the glass. He aimed between the Y. Closed one eye. The hole in the glass was small, and the van was approaching it. But if the ball hit glass…
Windsor grimaced. “Is that an explosive one, dude?”
“Yeah.”
Windsor took another large step back.
Greyson breathed in deeply and held it. Held it. Held it.
And fired.
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Drake raced up the stairs of the Pedestrian Tunnel and immediately saw they were blocked in by another chain-linked fence. But beyond the fence was a shaking drone, rattling against the cement. The others joined him, huffing and puffing, looking over their shoulders, half-expecting the rhino to resume the chase.
And just when Drake heard the whine of the police van’s engine, Grimes stepped forward. “That’s the drone!”
Drake grabbed him and yanked him back. “Get down! Now!”
The van crunched through a tree and pounded onto the courtyard, its bumper sending a shower of sparks into a waterfall. PatriARC was driving, his eyes catching sight of the drone and his arms fighting the wheel for control. The passenger held a missile launcher out the window. His eyes caught sight of Drake and the others. His mouth made the motion of a shout, but an explosion struck his words dead. The van lurched.
Concrete spattered Drake’s cheeks as he closed his eyes and ducked. Out of instinct he pulled Beep down and huddled with the others. They heard the crash, the grating of metal on concrete, and the avalanche of wreckage coming their way. But there was nowhere to hide. He put his arms over the others as the wreckage squealed louder and louder and LOUDER, and then stopped.
With the sound gone, he could hear his pounding heart. And then he heard Beep’s giggles. When he opened his eyes, he saw why.
The van had toppled the fence and slid upside-down, all the way to the tunnel’s exit. The van was entangled in barbed wire and debris, filling what was left of the opening. The entire stairway was blocked.
“Geez,” he exclaimed.
Tentatively, Drake crawled forward and peered through the open passenger-side window. He saw the upside-down torsos of the passenger and PatriARC hanging by seatbelts. Their faces were bloody and battered. Eyes closed, arms hanging to the vehicle’s ceiling. They were out cold.
He backed out and studied the situation. There was no crazed man to shoot off the locks this time. Their path was blocked. The only way out that he could see was through the van’s windows – under the hanging bodies.
He knelt and saw the drone on the other side of the van.
“We have to crawl through.”
“Nuh-uh,” Beep blurted, waving her finger. “Nuh…uh.”
brrrrrrruuuuuuuuuuUUUUUH!
The sound sent shivers up their spines.
“Well, okay then,” Beep said.
Flattening her
self, Beep crawled in low through the window, pulling herself by her elbows, her face showing repulsion as she wiggled away from the man’s head. She pushed his arm away, as if it were a snake, but his hand brushed against her backside.
“Eeew! Ya perv!”
“Keep going, Beep,” Drake challenged in a hoarse whisper.
“I would, but this t-shirt launcher is in my way.”
Drake knew she was referring to the missile launcher, but he couldn’t bear to tell her. “Just go faster,”
Grimes headed in next. “I deserve a medal for this. I’ll let you all hold it, too.”
Drake continued to encourage them as they all passed through. Before taking his turn, he took one last look back toward the dark tunnel. He swore he heard a stampede of fresh footsteps.
He took off his guitar and pushed it to Ankeny. He lowered himself to a stomach crawl. As he squeezed under the passenger, he dislodged the launcher and pushed it out the driver’s side window, where Ankeny pulled it out. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to have it, but it was better with her than PatriARC.
He eyed PatriARC. His face was flush with blood, veins bulging on his temples and forehead. His helmet was still on, but there were streams of blood running down his nose.
If you’re dead, stay dead.
He felt his heart hammering in his throat as he kept contact with PatriARC’s eyes as he passed.
The eyes flickered and then opened.
Ice-cold adrenaline poured through Drake’s veins as PatriARC blinked, confused, still waking.
Go, go, go!
He scrambled, abandoning all attempts at silence. Ankeny reached out and grabbed him – pulled him out. But only halfway.
PatriARC latched on his leg and yanked back.
“Help!” Ankeny shouted, calling Beep and Grimes to Drake’s rescue.
Drake flailed and kicked out with his shoe, connecting with the man’s helmet, but he wouldn’t let go.
Through the window, Drake saw two things he didn’t like. First, the passenger was also waking. Second, the rhino was back, its head poking up from the stairs, almost as if it were sniffing for new prey.
